Localization in an Industrial Environment: A Case Study on the Difficulties for Positioning in a Harsh Environment

While indoor localization has become a highly growing application domain in the last few years, it is hardly investigated in industrial environments. Interferences of magnetic fields, shadowing, and multipath propagation discourage positioning system vendors from porting their techniques to these harsh environments. However, the actual influence of these interferences on the positioning accuracy and the differences between an industrial and a nonindustrial environment have never been evaluated. This paper analyzes the actual differences for a positioning technique that is based on Wi-Fi fingerprinting, map matching, dead reckoning, filtering, and a plausibility determination. An investigation of the Wi-Fi signal strengths and compass sensor values in an industrial and a nonindustrial environment thereby showed that the differences between them are significant. In fact, it shows that more interferences and shadowing in the industrial environment resulted in even more accurate positioning.